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Ten years later: The night Aztecs’ Stephen Strasburg struck out 23 in a game

San Diego State right-hander Stephen Strasburg struck out a school-record 23 batters during a Mountain West game against Utah in 2008 at Tony Gwynn Stadium. It remains the highest strikeout total over the past 37 years.

While he would come to be regarded as a phenomenon a year later — when he averaged nearly two strikeouts an inning (195 Ks in 109 innings) — while going 13-1 and being the first overall selection by Washington in the 2009 MLB Draft, Strasburg was just starting down the path toward greatness.

He was the Aztecs’ closer as a freshman a year earlier, giving a glimpse of what was to come in one- and two-inning bursts.

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The most noise coming into his sophomore season was when Strasburg started touching 100 mph with his fastball — when triple digits were rare, certainly, in the college game — in offseason workouts.

Strasburg’s first start came in the 2008 season opener, an 11-2 win over crosstown rival USD. He outdueled the Toreros’ Brian Matusz, who would be the fourth overall pick four months later in the MLB Draft.

Strasburg struck out seven against the Toreros and, in fact, did not have a double-digit strikeout performance until he retired 12 in an 8-0 win over Houston.

Utah baseball coach Bill Kinneberg was pitching coach for Team USA in the summer of 2007 when he met Strasburg.

“I got to know him a little bit and saw what he could do,” Kinneberg said.

SDSU and Utah had met in a Mountain West contest at Salt Lake City just three weeks before this game, with Strasburg striking out nine in a 7-2 Aztecs win.

Kinneberg was hopeful on this night, however, because Strasburg had missed his start against New Mexico a week earlier because of a bad cold that led to an ear infection.

“I’m thinking, ‘Hmm, this might be an opportunity for us. He might not be as sharp.’ ” Kinneberg said.

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Those first three strikeouts dismissed such thoughts.

“The game started at 6 and it was dusk,” Kinneberg said. “He comes out in the first inning and you can’t even see his arm, it was so fast.

“He strikes the first three guys out and I’m going, ‘Gosh, that’s pretty hard. We’re in for a long night.’ ”

Second inning: LF Dustin Hennis flies out to right field (the game’s only fly ball out); 1B Austin Jones strikes out swinging; CF Cooper Blanc strikes out swinging.

Catching for Strasburg was sophomore Erik Castro, who starred as a corner infielder at Fallbrook High.

Castro volunteered to catch for SDSU just weeks earlier after injuries had decimated the Aztecs catching corps.

Although still learning the nuances of the position, Castro knew enough to give Strasburg a good — and ever wider — target.

“Stephen was hitting his spots right away that night,” Castro said. “When you’re a catcher and you set up four or five inches off the plate, and Stephen’s hitting them immediately, you stay there.

“And you maybe inch your way out further and further. If the umpire’s giving it to you, you keep doing it.”

Utah came into the game batting .330 as a team. Not that it mattered on this night.

“When you have that type of stuff and the umpire is giving you a few inches off the plate,” Castro said, “you’re giving that squad zero chance to hit.”

Third inning:SS Michael Beltran is put out unassisted by first base; RF Tyler Relf strikes out looking; 3B DC Legg strikes out swinging.

One time through the lineup and Strasburg has retired everyone he’s faced, seven of them on strikeouts.

Gwynn credits Rusty Filter, then SDSU’s pitching coach, for seeing potential in an out-of-shape kid out of high school who needed to improve his mental toughness.

Filter “just had this vision of him being this guy that we’re seeing,” Gwynn said. “When I first saw him -- I’m not going to lie -- I asked (Filter), ‘Are you sure?’ ... Everyone kind of focuses in on the velocity part of it, but he’s learning how to pitch. And I think closing last year helped in that aspect. I think he gained confidence from closing.”

Said Strasburg of his transformation: “I came in here at 245 (pounds) and the strength and conditioning coach put me through pretty much hell (as a freshman). I just tried as hard as I could every day and I lost like 30 pounds.

“Mechanically, I’m pretty much the same. But my velocity just jumped.”

This gets Strasburg to double digits in strikeouts during a stretch in which 14 straight outs are recorded on strikes.

“You think about a guy getting 10 strikeouts in a game,” said SDSU head coach Mark Martinez, an assistant coach on the 2008 team. “A 10-strikeout game is a really good game in college baseball. But you’re still 13 away.”

Martinez said Strasburg’s performance is sometimes recalled in the SDSU dugout when an Aztecs pitcher reaches double digits in Ks.

“Jokingly, sometimes it will come up when a guy is having a good night,” Martinez said, “like, ‘Hey, man, you’re not even halfway to Stephen’s record.’ ”

Beltran chopped the ball over Strasburg’s head and just under the glove of SDSU second baseman Garrett Green for a clean single to center field.

“The only hit they got was a bleeder over his head,” Castro said. “He almost threw a no-hitter along with the 23 strikeouts.”

Strasburg compounded things by misplaying Relf’s bunt, placing runners at first and second.

No matter.

Strikeout. Strikeout. Strikeout.

“He dominated the entire game,” Beltran recalled this week. “It was unlike anything I had ever seen. We went up to the plate and there was no chance for us. He was a totally different guy on the mound (than three weeks earlier when the teams played).”

As far as the hit, Beltran said, “It was just a chopper up the middle. ... I remember after the game guys saying, ‘In the book, it’s a line drive up the middle.’ It just happened to get through.”

Beltran said when Utah assistant coach Bryan Kinneberg prepared pregame scouting reports on pitchers to go over with the Utes hitters, he would write things such as “he likes to work outside or he likes to end on a breaking pitch. Stuff like that.”

When Utah faced SDSU late the next season, Strasburg came into the game with an 11-0 record. Beltran said the Utes scouting report was completely blank, except for these two words: “Good luck.”

Strasburg’s last strikeout of the seventh — his 18th of the game — broke the Mountain West record of 17 set in 2001 by SDSU’s Marcos Mendoza.

As great a game as Strasburg was pitching, Utah right-hander Stephen Fife was matching him inning-for-inning, if not strikeout-for-strikeout.

“Maybe the best thing that ever happened is Stephen Fife, that was a coming out party for him,” Kinneberg said. “There were a lot of scouts there, Stephen throws well, he goes in the third round (drafted by Boston). He made a name for himself that night as well.”

Fife, who reached the major leagues with the Dodgers in 2012, allowed just four singles through six innings in a game that was scoreless going into the bottom of the seventh.

“It was really funny because he goes out in the first and it looks like he’s throwing 65 mph because of the comparison (to Strasburg),” Kinneberg said. “I kept a (speed) gun chart. Here’s (Strasburg) with four pitches over 100 mph and my guy, who I thought didn’t have a whole lot, was 93-95 the whole night.”

Fife was undone by an unearned run in the seventh.

With one, Castro reached first base on an infield single to shortstop. A walk and a hit batter moved him to third. He scored the game’s only run SDSU’s Troy Hanzawa hit a ball to third base and Legg’s throw home was off the mark.

Strasburg broke a 20-year-old school record with the strikeout of Blanc — his 19th in the game — eclipsing an 18-strikeout performance in 1988 by John Hemmerly.

The accomplishment is noted by the public address announcer. Those in the crowd of 582 stand and applaud.

Ninth inning:Legg is hit by a pitch; Shimada is out by first baseman on sacrifice bunt (Legg moves to second base); Guymon strikes out swinging; Shriner strikes out swinging.

Strasburg was well north of 100 pitches by the ninth inning and Castro recalled some debate on whether to let him finish.

SDSU had another future major league, Addison Reed, in the bullpen ready to come in and close.

“Stephen is like, ‘Nope,’ ” Castro said.

Utah had a chance to ruin everything for Strasburg and the Aztecs when it put a runner in scoring position.

“When you think about it,” Martinez said, “the guy at second base is just a blooper away from a tie game.”

Strasburg got two more strikeouts to see to it that didn’t happen.

When Shriner found himself with two strikes, it brought the crowd to its feet as Strasburg reared back for to his 128th and final pitch of the game.

After Shriner swung and missed, Strasburg hopped off the mound and pumped his fist.

“My arm was well-rested,” Strasburg after he came off the mound. “I was pitching the way I have all year. Maybe my stuff was working a little better tonight.”

Castro remembers letting the excitement get the best of him.

“I just threw my glove and threw the ball up into the air,” Castro said, “and went in for a little run to pick him up. The ball went toward the first-base dugout. I think Pat Murray, our equipment manager, went and grabbed it.”

A few days after the game, Gwynn said, “I’m sitting here and I’ve never seen anything like this before. Kevin Brown struck out 16 against the Astros. That’s the most I’d ever seen.

“It was crazy. It was like a Nintendo game.”

Said Martinez recently: “I don’t know if we’ll ever witness something like that again. And not just that day. How dominant Stephen was throughout his career ... I don’t know if the phenomenon that he created here at San Diego State, if that can be matched. It probably will be, just not in our lifetime.

“Those kind of nights you want to remember forever.”

Swing and a miss

SDSU right-hander Stephen Strasburg’s 23 strikeouts against Utah in 2008 are the most in Division I in the past 37 years. It ranks among the top six performances in NCAA history. Here are the all-time single-game leaders for a nine-inning game:

26 — Buddy Schultz, Miami (Ohio) vs. Wright State, 1973

24 — Butch Mixon, LSU vs. Louisiana-Lafayette, 1959

23 — Stephen Strasburg, SDSU vs. Utah, 2008

23 — Neal Heaton, Miami (Fla.) vs. Indiana State, 1981

23 — Doug Wessel, Vanderbilt vs. Chattanooga, 1970

23 — Peter Smith, Colgate vs. Bucknell, 1961

Major League record

Major league single-game strikeout record (nine innings):

20 — Randy Johnson, Arizona vs. Cincinnati, 2001

20 — Kerry Wood, Chicago Cubs vs. Houston, 1998

20 — Roger Clemens, Boston vs. Detroit, 1996

20 — Roger Clemens, Boston vs. Seattle, 1986

NOTABLE

• Johnson’s performance came in an 11-inning game but was accomplished in nine innings.

• Tom Cheney of the Washington Senators had 21 strikeouts against Baltimore in 1962 but it was accomplished over 16 innings.

• Eight pitchers have struck out 19 batters in a nine-inning game (including Johnson twice in 1997 with Seattle).

• Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals set the World Series single-game record with 17 strikeouts against Detroit in 1968.

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